Temperature equilibration of hydrogen is studied for conditions relevant to inertial confinement fusion. New molecular-dynamics simulations and results from quantum many-body theory are compared with Landau-Spitzer predictions for temperatures $T$ with $50<T<4000\mathrm{eV}$ and densities with Wigner-Seitz radii $r_s=1.0$ and 0.5. The relaxation is slower than the Landau-Spitzer result, even for $T$ in the kilo-electron-volt range, but converge to agreement in the high-$T$ limit.

• Received 7 December 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.100.205005